Thursday, February 21, 2013

Today's Victory Meaningless? Perhaps not!

HB 2096, the
state takeover of underperforming schools bill, was defeated on a 19-21 vote
today. All twenty Democrats and Republican Harry Blevins were with us. As the Senate companion, SB 1324,
is already on the Governor's desk, isn't the failure of HB 2096 meaningless?

"That the
provisions of this act shall not become effective unless an appropriation of
general funds effectuating the purposes of this act is included in a general
appropriation act passed by the 2013 Session of the General Assembly, which
becomes law."

Even some of the
Republicans who voted for the bills have little stomach for an unconstitutional
state takeover of public schools.Might
today's Senate defeat of the House bill embolden the Senate budget conferees to
resist the desire of the House to provide the $600,000 needed to fund the
Opportunity Educational Institution (OEI)?

Remember, the
Senate budget bill includes a budget amendment directing the Joint Legislative
an Review Commission to "study options for the restructuring of lowest performing
schools and districts."The Senate
budget does not include funding for OEI: the House budget does.

This will
obviously be an issue taken up by the budget conferees, and Senators Stosch,
Colgan, Howell, Norment, Hanger and Watkins and Delegates Putney, K. Cox,
Sherwood, Landes, Jones and Joannou will, as George Bush used to say, be the
deciders. The Senate opposes the appropriation, and Delegates Jones and Landes opposed the bill. I haven't heard note one from the fat lady.